Were McLaren quick enough to take pole position in Monaco? It’s possible they were. The red flag at the end of third practice meant it was hard to tell for sure.

Button was less than half a second off Sebastian Vettel in Q3, and Hamilton has often been a few tenths quicker than him in qualifying, so perhaps he could have made a fight for it.

But McLaren chose to send him out for a single run in Q3 at Monaco – a risky plan given the possibility of an interruption during the session in a weekend that had already seen three red flags. Sure enough, it backfired.

Hamilton only got one run in after the session restarted following Sergio Perez’s crash – and that time was deleted when he was found to have cut the chicane, leaving him ninth on the grid. “We probably should have put a banker in,” he reflected, “I had the pace to be on pole”.

Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, Monaco, 2011

He got past Michael Schumacher at the start but the Mercedes driver ran into him at Sainte Devote, breaking part of his rear wing (zoom in on the picture to see).

This briefly convinced Hamilton he had a puncture – “I have a flat tyre, right-rear” he told the team. Schumacher took the opportunity to re-pass him at the hairpin.

Hamilton took the place back on lap ten, diving down the inside of Schumacher at Sainte Devote. Schumacher saw him coming at the last moment and gave the McLaren room – much as Hamilton had at the hairpin on the first lap.

He latched onto the back of a five-way battle for fifth headed by Nico Rosberg. Unable to make a move on Vitaly Petrov, the team called Hamilton into the pits to try to take advantage of the ‘undercut’.

In Hamilton’s terse words after the race: “They said ‘[pit] to overtake’, I came in, and they weren’t there”. Despite the slow stop he was able to leapfrog Petrov and Maldonado, but not Massa.

Having switched to super-soft tyres he began attacking Massa, who was on softs. But a passing attempt at the hairpin ended in contact. Massa briefly stayed ahead, but crashed as Hamilton passed him in the tunnel.

Having fallen to ninth, Hamilton passed Petrov at Tabac only to be caught up in the mayhem at the swimming pool on lap 69. Braking to avoid Adrian Sutil’s Force India, he was hit from behind by Jaime Alguersuari.

This left him with a broken rear wing which ordinarily would have ended his race. But the stoppage allowed the team to work on his car and repair the damage, allowing him to continue.

Hamilton resumed behind Pastor Maldonado who was running on soft tyres. Using the grip advantage of his super-softs at the restart he made to pass the Williams at Sainte Devote much as he had taken Schumacher earlier. But Maldonado stuck to his line and the pair collided, dumping the Williams into the barriers.

He reeled in Kamui Kobayashi for fifth but didn’t make it past the Sauber. Not that it would have made a difference, as the stewards gave him a 20-second time penalty for the collision with Maldonado. With the next car a lap down it made no difference to his finishing position.

He pulled out a 13-second margin which was not enough to make a pit stop and retain the lead. McLaren brought him in again on lap 33 for more super-softs.

The timing was unfortunate, as the safety car came out just one lap later: “I suppose, Monaco Grand Prix, you always have to expect safety cars but you always hope they don?óÔé¼Ôäót happen when you are on a three-stop strategy”, he said afterwards.

As the race restarted the team advised Button on the radio he needed to pass Vettel. Despite being at least a second and a half faster in clean air, Button couldn’t find a way past.

Button’s pit stop for the mandatory change to soft tyres left him third, behind Alonso.

For lap after lap Vettel, Alonso and Button circulated, the three separated by half a second. Button found Alonso hard to pass as the Ferrari driver was able to use DRS in his pursuit of Vettel.

The race suspension put paid to any hopes Button had of taking advantage of the drivers in front of him having worn tyres.

He said: “Fernando, I?óÔé¼Ôäóm sure, was filling Sebastian?óÔé¼Ôäós mirrors and he got very close a couple of times into turn one, and into the last corner, so you don?óÔé¼Ôäót know.

“Anything could have happened over those ten laps that we would have had if we hadn?óÔé¼Ôäót had the safety car.”

Initially I thought Hamilton was to blame regarding the incidents. But having looked at how Hamilton and Schumacher treated each other with regards to overtakes (at the same points), I also think that Massa and Maldonado lacked a bit of race craft with regards to knowing when to capitulate or at least judgement about how much to close the door without causing an incident.

I agree. When they see the guy coming they close the door, and then crash just not to look like fools. And start blaming lewis for dangerous driving.
It was the same with montoya, and senna. And monty was so fed up with it that sent everything to hell and escaped.
Lewis has more sense of the history of the sport, but he must have a limit like the rest of us. If he goes to nascar, i think it would be the last straw for me.

Just watched the reply of the hamilton-massa incident at the chicane. There is clearly a moment where felipe turns in slightly more than his original line as lewis closes in. For me, lewis’s move was too optimistic, but massa made the situation worse than it should have been. He got owned in the tunnel though!

Guys that know how to race, and race hard, Schumi and Hamilton, pass and re-pass each other.

Whereas guys blocking seats with stolen millions from the Venezuelan poor, and as tame #2s, when it gets tricky, when it all happens too quick, they show themselves clearly to be from the second rank.

I too immediately thought of Montoya, and the huge loss to the sport, in part from just this sort of unnecessary and officious interference … Hamilton to NASCAR, alongside JPM and Kimi, it wouldn’t pay quite as well, but he’d clearly start having some fun hard-racing again.

The thing about Maldonado is that if he had given Hamilton the room, maybe he would have lost a position but he still would have been in the race. Chopping across Hamilton’s tyre and running him out of road was a rather noobish mistake.

great picture… it clearly proves wrong the people saying Lewis was further back with Maldonado. Shows the only difference is the reaction of the defending driver. One was sensible and continued in the race, the other panicked. Yet some people analyse the first as a great overtake, the other as a stupid mistake. I don’t understand this point of view… if you’re going to punish lewis for one, surely you have to punish him for the other? No? exactly!

Well said. But f1 is going this way, and is not going to change. They will keep creating this artificial racing, and just look at the tv figures. They don’t care about the fans, just the numbers. They are trying to fool the fans, and the worst thing is, they are achieving it very easy.

I think Maldonado didn’t think Lewis would try it from there. The pictures are interesting but the entry lines are very different and you can’t tell where the braking zone begins. I think the onboard camera videos are a better indication. He was behind Maldonado when he started braking.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYiNKYaviZI

The margin for error is tiny in Monaco. Lewis made a mistake and was punished accordingly. He just had a shocker this weekend. He’ll be back. Hopefully he will learn from this as quickly as he learned from his tyres in Malaysia and be a better driver for it.

i agree with you, those photos only higlight more differences then similaties, the pass on schumacher had more space, and schumacher was coming from wider to the apex so had a slight moment more to react, also in previous years shcumacher would have done a chop, and been further on the inside defending, and also it was the start of the race and his tyres were fading, so why defend too hard and be part of the crash that hamilton was already starting? where as later in the race, hamilton trying something like that from a more accute angle on a rookie driving 6th in his first monaco race, was never going to work. at the start of the race it is different then at the end, the defending isnt as hard, but maldonado did not do anything wrong, hamilton was the car behind and he rammed him, how blind are people? and some people think this makes him a great driver – crashing people out. most of his overtakes over the years have been aided with the advantage of a strong merc engine, kers in ’09, f-duct in ’10, and now kers, merc and drs in combination giving him a better opportunity to pass then other drivers, as it brings him closer to attempt a pass then other cars. put him in a bad car (like the start of ’09) and all he can do is finish poorly, wear the tyres too much and shout at his engineers. hamilton turns in on pass attempts just like maldonado and massa did, only their hasnt been many crashes because the car behind has been smart enough to pull out of the pass, he is two faced this hamilton guy, if the other drivers let him through it would mean he has a special priveledge the other drivers dont have, id like to see him in the same situation reversed, in massa or maldonados car, would he have done different? no, but the difference would be maldonado and massa wont be close enough because of hamiltons merc, kers, drs advantage.

quite simply LH had a massive sulk cos people simply didnt just pull over and let him cruise past, hes just an arrogant hothead and to make such a racist comment smacks of complete and utter rudeness, he said what he said and then decided to say it was a joke…that in itself is the biggest joke. The guy is obviously talented but he has to learn some manners and earn some respect. nobody seems to be mentioning his his actions completely screwed Buttons race, without the saftey car he was sure fire winner.

No he wasn’t – as I said in the article he never had the time in hand over Vettel to make his switch to soft tyres without falling behind. And he made his second pit stop before the safety car came out.

Since I cant seem to reply to your latest comment I will just say that it is my opinion and you can have all the facts and figures you like, no one will know if Vettels gamble would have paid off, his tyres could have hit the cliff in the last 5- 8 laps giving Button every chance. Assume we are allowed to voice opinions that differ to yours Keith ??

no red mist here just voicing an opinion that seems to have ruffled a few feathers….no one can say what would have happened over last few laps… as Alonso said he would have tried a pass and it would have worked or they would have crashed… Button said he could see it happening at turn 1 and was waiting an opportunity… Vettels tyres were shot and it would have been some drive to keep both Alonso & Button behind but who knows since the guy is pretty good at the moment, just saying that the saftey car pretty much screwed any chance Button had but he was definately in the hunt *( PS I’m not a Button fan particularly )

I’m shocked that people think Jenson could have overtaken Fernando and Seb for the win at Monaco. Jenson was chasing Vettel on a pair of Super soft tyres, while Vettel was still on the softs, and Jenson still never looked capable of overtaking Seb. There is no way Jenson would be able to get by Alonso on the same tyre compound during the last 6 laps.

I have said this the whole time. People assume button wouldve overtaken alonso and vettel whereas I dont think he wouldve. jenson is a good driver but we all know that he prefers not to battle with drivers especially in monaco. Even Brundle said that jenson wouldntve liked the instruction from his engineer to overtake vettel and alonso on track. Once button closed up on the supersofts he backed off and left it to alonso to help despatch vettel – thats where I think he lost out as well as not pumping in the times enough.

Also consider that button was gifted a perfect opportunity when Hamilton was out of the fight and especially when redbull dropped a huge clanger in the pits.
-Chances like that hardly ever come and when they do – they need to be capitalised on.

I also think vettel deserved to be driver of the day as he dragged out the life on those soft tyres whilst being under heavy pressure.

I dont think this was a great result and performance from jenson – he had the race win gifted but instead lost 2 more places – I cant see why the guy gets so much praise for losing the race.

I don’t think we could have ruled Jensen out for the win. Just before the big pile up, Alonso of all drivers was slipping and sliding everywhere, and Ted himself was saying on the RBR pit wall that Vettel was going to fall off massively in 2 laps.

Shame Hamilton’s various incidents are overshadowing Button’s performance in this headline.

I think the problem with the steward’s decisions in Monaco was that they failed to take into account the actions of the driver defending. A lunge up the inside by the guy behind may result in a collision (and may warrant a penalty) – but so could an overly aggressive defence of a corner. They only seem to want to penalise the driver trying to overtake, which I find strange considering the FIA’s attempts to increase overtaking. The DRS zone was the pit straight remember, encouraging moves into turn 1. Did anyone but Hamilton make a move stick there?

If both drivers make bad choices leading to a collision, why not either call it a racing incident or penalise both? Considering a collision is usually it’s own penalty, I think the stewards need to relax and give the drivers some lee-way to battle the way the FIA themselves are trying to enable.

Cue Hamilton abuse.
Canada cannot come soon enough! It’s been a day and most of what Ive read since the race has just been abuse. I’ve barely even seen congratulations to the top three finishers! Oh well

Here’s hoping for a positive weekend in Canada. (from everyone.. I’m not a Hamilton fanboy)

Their difference in performance was enormous, partly due to Hamiltons qualifying. Button was superb all the time, with excellent qualifying and race, with many fast laps and he rapidly reduced his gap to the leaders despite an extra stop.

Can we stop saying that it was ‘McLaren’s’ fault for not sending out Hamilton at the beginning of Q3 and start saying that it was a ‘joint decision between some engineers and their driver’ not to go out at the beginning of Q3.

OK. So it must have been recognised by some ‘McLaren team’ members that there was an element of ‘risk’ to the strategy if the other driver of the same ‘McLaren team’ had the same ‘McLaren team’ opting to ‘play it safe’?

I think Hamilton, although I initially thought he seemed to be blaming the engineers, actually admitted they share blame, when saying he didn’t speak against it – in the end it will always be his engineers that suggest strategy, based on the data, then they decide together what he will do, based on that information, and his own feelings.

I’m with VXR on this, everyone’s blaming McLaren, but Button didn’t wait tilt he final minutes did he? If it was a team decision he obviously over-ruled it, so why couldn’t Hamilton? Clearly it was a joint decision but Hamilton, like with the other incidents, was unwilling to take his portion of the blame.

I guess Lewis could have overruled but his job is to drive, there are a gang of people whose job it is to work out the best strategy. He’s trusted them before and he will trust them again. Jenson’s race engineers planned the sensible thing of going out so Jenson did not have to overrule them.

They need to do their job better in regards Sat afternoon, Monaco is not the race for that tactic. If I was Whitmarsh the race engineers in question would be scrutinised. It’s not the drivers job to crunch numbers on strategy.

Yeah but… as much as I hate to read it… Vettel said it was HIS decision to stay out etc… when will Lewis take SOME responsibility and some conviction???? He should take the team by the throat, much as he does with his car…

If Lewis continues blaming everyone else and refuses to take control of his destiny and even make mistakes (people are so willing to forgive)… he will never be among the elite – no matter how fast he is….

LOL, now that should be picked up by the FIA for their drive safely campaing.

Put a short shot of Di Resta in, admitting he made a mistake and keeping cool. Then Hamilton flipping out and some of the moves on track. Then have Hamilton tell how much he realises it was the emotions getting on top and costing him dearly.

Could be a great hit on the net if done nice and with a bit of humour.

yes hes a whiney guy but I still fully support him.
Without Lewis this would be BORING.monaco?Really?
Does anyone know who won the race ? NO.
Its all about the bashing.My boy fooked up.Get over it.
I wish he would shut up and drive.But as long as I can watch him drive,Ill listen to his rants.

I agree pit makes more sense than box, especially since most teams and drivers hardly use the word themselves.

Have you ever thought about using ‘prime’ and ‘option’ instead of refering to the actual compound though? Unlike pit vs box this does make sense, and all teams and drivers also refer to their tyres as the prime and option. Where in one race the Soft might be the prime (as now monaco) and the other the option (I think all the other races.

I never understood why the BBC did this either. I think coulthart usually doesn’t, though.

Button was leading Vettel and Alonso by 13 and 16 seconds before his stop, so came out of the pits in a close third.

At that point Button would have had to stop again to use the soft tyres. Theoretically, Vettel and Alonso could have gone to the end. Without the SC it might have played out in a similar way to what actually happened, albeit with Alonso on older tyres (he stopped when the SC came out). Perhaps more likely is that Vettel and Alonso would have wanted a further stop, so the question is timing.

Button was only a few seconds behind Vettel and Alonso in third and would’ve caught them quickly but probably not passed. Red Bull and Ferrari would then have been faced with a difficult choice. Either stay out and blunt Button’s new tyre advantage or pit and hope to pull the gap back to less than Button needed to pit again.

The risk for Vettel and Alonso was that one would pit first and use the undercut the pass the other. If they both pitted too early they may not hold back Button for long enough to stop him pulling out enough to keep the lead during his final stop. Stay out too long and Button could use the undercut to pass them both.

In other words, it was all to play for – there’s no way of knowing who would have won.

Great race by Button and the McLaren crew! Besides the obvious reason, I wish that the race wasn’t stopped by the massive pileup so that we could see how the race unfolded with Button on the freshest tyres of the front runners. What a great job by Button to close the gap to Alonso and Vettel the way he did.

I am truly disappointed by the way the stewards handled the Hamilton and Maldonado incident, as he was more than halfway up alongside Maldonado far before the apex of Ste Devote. Maldonado turned in way to optimistically when compared to the same move that Hamilton pulled on Schumacher earlier in the race.

Watch the Schumacher pass again–he wasn’t fully alongside Schumacher until he just passed the apex. That being said, though, Hamilton was about two thirds up on Schumacher’s car versus the halfway or so on Maldonado.

Part of the trouble is with that is: what is ahead – if your wheels are exactly next to someone early on a straight, it might be simple (until you reach the end of that straight, see further).

But if you are going on on a curve, even if you are slightly behind, you might be actually “ahead” in the sense that you will make the corner, and the other guy won’t without breaking harder.

So that rule is a bit unclear unless we are talking about a simple DRS overtake or something – the more interesting moves will be in a corner, where it might well be a question of who would be able to get out of it the fastest.

Ayrton Senna: “by being a racing driver means, you are racing with other people. And if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver. Because we are competing, competing to win and the main motivation to all of us, is to compete for victory, not to com 4th 5th or 6th”

I for one hope Hamilton continues to do what he does best, like Senna when Hamilton stops racing i will stop watching.

You must like fast parade racing (if you can call it racing)). live everybody is pretty much the same in terms of driving and pretty much everybody has the same machinary and pretty much everybody follows the one just a ahead for 78 laps … Good on you pal! Sure you wont be disappointed as you know who is going to win.No need for safety cars as there wont be racing incidents/penalties!

Like who else gave us action then… Like Webber stuck behind Kobayashi, who in turn is stuck behind Sutil for days!! Same is the case with Button and Alonso, stuck behind the leader even with fresher tyres. So how can you call it a race if everybody keeps to their conservatism. The only other position changes happened in the pits or during safety car. If Hamilton is not there then all you have to do to solve the problem of racing is to create 3 safety car situations with 2-3 pit stops. Goodluck with that.

Depends on your definition of racing .. For me racing is wheel to wheel action. Putting the driver ahead under pressure to make him do mistakes. No friking cutting the race track deliberately and not looking into mirrors neither doing parade laps one after the other showing off how good the engineers developed the car. You may aswell give all the points after Q3.

Did he? If I recall correctly it was in answer to Jackie Stewart telling him he was involved in more incidents than every world champion put together. Then again I’ve only seen a small clip of the interview so he may have been referring to Suzuka, but I don’t recall a direct reference to it.

Regardless of the circumstances, it’s a quote which embodies Senna’s lack of sportsmanship and respect for his own and other drivers’ safety. It is an attitude which arguably got him killed.

There’s more to being a racing driver than coming first, a lesson which Senna never learned. Hopefully Lewis will outgrow the same infantile attitude.

The most striking part of Lewis’ post-race comments aren’t about the racism, but the fact that he thinks that because Sebastian is leading him by a mile gives him the right to take the gloves off and act like a madman.

He’s obviously panicking, as with a WDC each he and Vettel are more or less equal, but once Vettel wins a second, then Lewis’ status as the golden boy will be gone, and he’ll no longer be a prodigy, just another driver with a single world championship.

TBH guessing who won the race is hardly difficult. Only one person wins no matter what happens always and the other person who can compete with him is always in trouble due to what he is (Unfortunately)!!

THB the whole red flag thing in Q3 is a farce. They should give driver more time time more than atleast the time to complete a proper outlap from the pits and do a couple of proper laps. Hamilton was on a hot lap which e abandoned due to Perez’s incident. He is not in the same place after the red flag. He is in the pits with cold tyres with wrong tyre pressures and cold brakes!

I don’t think so. The rules are the rules, there is a high chance of a SC at Monaco so if you don’t go out immediately in Q3 then you have to live with that risk.

Hamilton should have overulled the team and got a banker in. End of. Even if he was only doing one run why leave it until the middle of the session when you might get hampered Massa style on people coming out for their second run?

Okay I’m being serious: Hamilton drove great, I thought. Hampered by the team decision in Q3, blocked deliberately by Massa, scrunched by Schumacher at the start of the race, driven into by Massa, messed up by the team again, excellent pass on Petrov only to be clobbered by Alguersuari, driven into by Maldonado. Three undeserved penalties with none for the wayward, blundering opposition.

Hamilton is part of the team. He didn’t drive great. He was involved in the decision not to go out at the beginning of Q3. He failed to get fully alongside Massa or Maldando early enough on his attempts to overtake them. Alguersuari had nowhere else to go. He’s also pretty useless at interviews. But I can still see why he’s annoyed. LOL

See, you’ve filtered out Massa blocking him, Schumacher hitting him, the team calling him and not being there… and the other collisions are all debatable as we’ve seen in the thread discussions. Just depends on how you look at it. Okay so I’m taking his side in the 50/50s, but I still think that adds up to a weekend where much of what went wrong wasn’t actually his doing.

Trying to race at Monaco. Not pretty, but I’d say legitimate. I think the weekend was one huge snowball of problems for Hamilton from the moment he and his team, for whatever reasons, went for one run in q3. But I bet when this championship is wrapped up by Vettel mid-season everyone will be wishing someone had made more of a fight of it! Take Alonso: any real interest in passing Vettel or happy for second? No answer because of the red flag, but I have my doubts he’s have risked much. At least Lewis was making the attempt.

Completely agree, VXR needs to settle down with the hamilton abuse. The reason why I got into F1 was bacause of hamilton bringing excitement to the sport. True, he may cross the line occasionally, but F1 would undoubtedly be a bit less thrilling without him.

It does seem likely – here in Monaco, Williams finally was fast, but does that mean they will be great everywhere? I hope so for them, but I doubt it. Monaco is quite different, and it certainly doesn’t allow the best bits of the RBR7 to shine the hardest; I also think that with the current car, Ferrari would struggle again in Valencia.

I really feel for Hamilton here. The guy certainly made mistakes this last weekend, but a lot of the criticism is very harsh. Whether or not you as the viewer feel like he deserved his penalties, do we really expect these drivers to agree with the penalties they are handed? I certainly don’t.

And it seems that many folks are up in arms about his ali g joke, saying he was playing the race card, which is total nonsense. In fact its quite the opposite; by saying it as a tongue-in-cheek joke and laughing about it, he’s making light of it and poking fun at himself a bit.

One this is clear: he’ll go a long way toward silencing his critics if he has another strong showing in canada.

I was very impressed with the way the BBC crew, particularly Jake, handled it at the time. Yet Andrew Benson, with the benefit of being able to digest it, made a deal of it in his blog and almost seems to imply he was being serious about the race issue. Not that I’ve respected his writings for quite a while now.

Short of time, so I have not fully availed myself of the wisdom usually collected in these comments, but I got a chance to see the end of the race finally, and I’m pretty shocked about the Maldonado penalty. Maldonado simply shut the door way too late. I know the regulars who take up the burden of policing the Hamilton fans will put up their usual doctored GIFs and trigonometry proofs or whatever, but it’s pretty straight-forward. Schumacher and Hamilton showed how to pass and get passed in the hairpin and St. Devote. Maldonado and Massa need to review the video.

As an unbiased opinion, Hamilton was unlucky to not have a chance at front row or pole due to bad luck with Perez accident and red flag and nobody is to be blamed for a bad call on only going for one run.

In the race he was frustrated as he knew he had the best chance of any driver to win this race so he made risky moves which didn’t pull off.

Although he did appear to be driving recklessly other parties weren’t so innocent.

And again everytime Hamilton even blinks it appears there is no hesitation to penalise him for any incident he is involved with. (Spa 2008.)

Schumacher and Vettel never would’ve won the championship if they copped the same treatment.

Lucky for Lewis this time he did deserve it for being frustrated and impatient to get to the front.

When Vettel crashed into Button he was handed a drivetrough aswell. Going toe to toe with Webber resulted in a DNF. He was aggressive in Silverstone, but I didn’t consider that to be very out of the ordinary myself.

Since his Spa accident, Vettel hasn’t made huge mistakes. One could argue that this is because he’s always been at the front of races, but that is the goal of racing in the end, so you can’t really hold that against him I think.

I don’t buy the perspective that the safety car disadvantaged Button. Infact, I think it helped him. Had the safety car come just before his 2nd pit-stop then it would have been a disadvantage as it would have wiped off his 13-second advantage. But it came after his pitstop which means that the 8-10 second deficit he had to Vettel reduced to 2-3 backmarkers.
Thanks to the safety car, from lap 39 to his 3rd pit-stop on lap 48, Button was on Vettel’s tail with tyres that were both fresher and softer than Vettel’s.
And safety cars just after your pitstop always help you not disadvantage you. I am sure people haven’t forgotten Singapore 2008?

Exactly. I have no idea why people are saying that Jenson was unlucky with the safety car period, when instead I saw it as an advantage to him. The red flag incident was a disadvantage to both him and Fernando, although I still didn’t think Jenson would have been able to challenge Fernando or Seb. Jenson was back in cruising mode anyways, and was just hoping for Fernando or Seb to make a mistake instead of actually trying something himself.

If there is contact now the aggressor is almost always judged to be at fault UNLESS he has his nose ahead before turn in.

This discourages racing. It’s also very wrong. The rules started out to stop people doing desperate dan lunges up the inside – which is fair enough because those are ridiculous, however, if someone is obviously attacking a gap then it should be up to the defender to make way for the aggressor.

That does not mean they have to let them through – there are 2 parts to defending, first – dissuade your opponent. You KNOW they are behind you and attacking, you should remove the gap before it is there with good car positioning. This will stop them from making the move in the first place or force them to a less advantageous part of the track if they do make the move.

Second – if they get up alongside you then narrow the gap as much as possible and give them a difficult exit or take a wider line and cut under them (second option not really possible all that much in Monaco I’ll give you)

This allows the person in front to defend and gives the person behind the space to race them. There are good examples of this in this very race.

Shuey on Hamilton – Hamilton saw him coming and stayed wide knowing he could no longer shut the door allowing space for the overtake with the opportunity to come back under him if he made a mistake on braking.

Webber on Kobayashi – Webber took the inside, Kobayashi tried to outbrake him but did not turn back in on him.

Hamilton on Shuey – Schumacher saw Hamilton coming and narrowed the gap on turn in BUT crucially left some space for the pass to go ahead if Hamilton held his nerve.

The focus of penalties should move more onto the defending driver. They have all the power as to where they can place their car in defence – allowing them to put the opposition on a dirty line or a difficult angle, and it should be up to them to allow space if the opponent thinks they can make it. If they have braked late, positioned their car correctly and got the best line for the circumstances even in a slower car, they can still come out on top – this makes overtaking a real battle.

I think that they need to make it easier to realise when there is someone alongside you – you SHOULD be able to hear it at the moment but they could improve things – better more stable mirrors for a start. Possibly even a proximity light (not sure about that but just putting it out there). This should make matters fairer

Well said. The way MSC left Lewis just enough room, and the way Lewis had the skill to take it, were the highlight of the race. Maldonado, I can forgive as he is a rookie. That should go down as a racing incident and the stewards should have a word with him. Massa on the other hand, should know better by now and at least accept his part in another racing incident rather than trying to get Lewis punished further.

Overall i completely Hated what Lewis said on Sunday and i thought the way he drove this Weekend was completely reckless and Unacceptable and i thought that this was not the Lewis Hamilton i Knew.But he Spoke his Heart and Mind out with real Honesty and Emotion and that really should be touching to Formula 1 Fans at the Moment.The Lewis Hamilton that i Know was relatively calm towards the end of His Interview and was mature as well as commenting on Twitter,Apologising to everyone he probably offended over the Grand Prix Weekend.

This is obviously coming from a Lewis Fan and to be honest right now we can critcise Lewis and respect what he said as much as we want but its in the Past and we should look forward to Montreal Next Weekend and seeing Lewis recover from all of this with another POLE POSITION AND RACE VICTORY!!

I thought JB was rather Unfortunate this Weekend and thought he should have won this Grand Prix but McLaren got their Strategy by pitting Jenson during the Safety Car Period and giving Track Position(Which is Critical in Monaco) to Seb.With McLaren and Strategies,they always think that Lewis and Jenson can just fly past Drivers ahead with the Faster Tyres(Options) its not Easy and Lewis and Jenson has demonstrated difficulties of such(Australia 2010 and Monaco 2011) and to choose that kind of Strategy while Racing in the Streets of Monte Carlo makes it Doublely Difficult as usual.

A Question in my mind and Others,With those Fresher Options at the final stage of the Race,Would JB passed Seb and Fernando.Well at a Track like Monaco,So Tight and rarely Overtaking Opportunities are presented and with Vettel about to reach the ‘cliff'(which was prevented due to the Massive Crash that brought out the Red Flag and suspended the race).Its very difficult but Unlikely at to tell if Jenson or Fernando could have won the race.

Anyway Hope Lewis or Jenson Grab Pole and Race Victory in Canada,Lewis is definetely a Contender for Pole due to his Pole Streak.Gonna be a Cracking Weekend defintely Red Bull’s Weakest

Lewis needs to learn a little composure, it is plain to see he is frustrated but acting like a spoilt child is not the answer.

I think his biggest mistake in this sport was starting in a top team, he has never felt what it is like to start in a slower struggling car and other drivers have gained valuable experience in their careers by starting at the bottom, he has had most things handed to him on a plate.

There has to come a time on the track when you realise that the win just is’nt achievable and what is more important are points, points that could matter later on in the season, the ‘frustrated’ Lewis cannot seem to grasp that.

I wonder if Hamilton needs to take control of his race team more, like Alonso & Schumacher do/did at Ferrari. He keeps moaning about the team decisions like a muppet – take control Lewis, your good enough. Whitmarsh & the rest will guess the call but you’re the driver who has to live with it. Stand up man.

Great race from Jenson Button. It felt like a real classic situation and no doubt it would have been between, Vettel, Alonso and himself had it not been for the red-flag. Still…it’s quite nice knowing we will never know.

Good to see him on the podium.

Probably Hamilton’s worst ever weekend for getting on the wrong side of the stewards, it just went from bad to worse! It’s strange though, after all the controversy and penalties you would have expected worse than 6th, not bad at all!